Works

The wind of evening cried along the darkening trees,
Along the darkening trees, heavy with ancient pain,
Heavy with ancient pain from faded centuries,
From faded centuries.... O foolish thought and vain!
...

Wind waves the reeds by the river,
Grey sky lids the leaden water.
Ducks fly low across the water,
Three flying: one quacks sadly.

Grey are the sky and the water,...

The heavy train through the dim country went rolling, rolling,
Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land ridges
That merged in the snowy sky; came turning meadows, fences,...

When London was a little town
Lean by the river's marge,
The poet paced it with a frown,
He thought it very large.

He loved bright ship and pointing steeple
And bridge with houses loaded...

What deaths men have died, not fighting but impotent.
Hung on the wire, between trenches, burning and freezing,
Groaning for water with armies of men so near;...

What hues the sunlight had, how rich the shadows were,
The blue and tangled shadows dropped from the crusted branches
Of the warped apple-trees upon the orchard grass.
...

BOOK I

Mother of Rome, delight of gods and men,
Beloved Venus, who under the fleeting stars
Fillest the freighted sea and earth's ripe fields,
O since through thee alone all forms of life...

I am a lake, altered by every wind.
The mild South breathes upon me, and I spread
A dance of merry ripples in the sun.
The West comes stormily and I am troubled,...

The lily of Malud is born in secret mud.
It is breathed like a word in a little dark ravine
Where no bird was ever heard and no beast was ever seen,
And the leaves are never stirred by the panther's velvet sheen....